Elon Musk's huge battery is now powering South Australia

Judith Quinn

The launch comes after the battery was put under a regulatory testing period that examined the battery's ability to charge to, and from, Australia's National Energy Market and it's ability to act as a generator.

The rest of the country will be looking at the Musk's battery and how in performs in South Australia with the country overall facing an energy crisis with a system that is "among the world's costliest and dirtiest", and "annoyingly unreliable", wrote Australian Financial Review in October. He told Reuters, "We think that's what's really going to accelerate the uptake of energy storage in Australia".

The 100MW/129MWh battery is capable of powering about 30,000 homes for a little over an hour.

Earlier on Twitter, Musk exchanged comments with Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and vowed to meet a 100-day deadline from the date of signing or build the battery complex for free.

This Friday, Jay Weatherhill, the state's premier, flipped the switch on the massive battery, calling it "history in the making".

The 100-megawatt battery is officially the world's largest, at it will be used to supply South Australia's power grid with backup power during times of shortage. "It can address those stability issues very quickly without needing to resort to using large power plants", said Praveen Kathpal, the vice president of AES Energy, who also bid for the battery contract. However, supporters of the new solution say that it will help stabilize the state's power grid that derives more than 40 percent of its electricity from wind energy, but needs helps when the wind dies down, especially during summers.

But critics have described it as a "Hollywood solution" in a country that still relies on fossil fuels, mainly coal, for two-thirds of its electricity.

Highlighting industry hopes for the take-up of battery storage, Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited the site some 225 kms (141 miles) north of the state capital Adelaide in July, hailing the battery as "just the beginning".

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